“It’s bleeding badly, Paul. Let me see,” she insisted, not willing to take no for an answer.
“It’s fine, Jeanie,” he said grimly, but let her pull his hand out from under the water and examine the wound.
“It’s not fine, you need stitches,” she said firmly, wincing as she took in the open gash. Jesus, he had missed bone, but by a hairsbreadth. And he was bleeding like crazy. She wrapped the towel around the wound and tied it tight, ignoring the pained way he sucked in a breath. She had to stop the bleeding. “You have to go to the hospital.”
“Yeah.” He sighed. “Can you watch Livy while I—”
“You are not driving yourself to the hospital with one hand. Especially not after losing this much blood. You could pass out.”
“There you go, fussing again,” he said with irritation.
Jeanne Louise ground her teeth together. “Sit down,” she said firmly. “I’ll get dressed and grab Livy and we’ll head right over.”
She ushered him to a chair at the table, saw him seated and then raced out of the room, using immortal speed rather than the slower more mortal speed they tried to incorporate around mortals. Jeanne Louise was back in the bedroom, tugging clothes on before most mortals would have reached the stairs. She didn’t worry over much about what she put on, just grabbed up the clothes she’d been wearing earlier and slapped them on, grabbed her car keys off the bedside table, and then rushed into Livy’s room and scooped her up, slipping into her thoughts to keep her sleeping as she did.
She was back in the kitchen a moment later and carrying Livy out into the garage, aware that Paul had stood to follow. Jeanne Louise buckled the child into the backseat, straightened and closed the door, then turned and offered Paul a steadying hand as he made his shaky way to the front passenger seat. He didn’t protest her assistance. Not that she would have cared if he did at this point. He was weaving like a drunken sailor, the dish towel wrapped around his hand soaked through with blood. She saw him in the seat, buckled him in quickly, then slammed the door and ran around to the driver’s side.
Jeanne Louise hit the garage door opener before her behind was even fully on the seat. Only then did she pull the door closed, and do up her own seat belt. By the time she started the engine, the door was open and she simply backed out.
They were both silent as she drove them to the hospital. Jeanne Louise was biting back her worry as her gaze shifted anxiously from the road to Paul’s pale face. He was still bleeding, the red liquid now dripping from the towel to his lap. She saw that and drove faster, her lips sending a silent prayer that he didn’t bleed to death on her before she got him to the hospital.
Jeanne Louise pulled right up to the emergency entrance, slammed the car into park and leapt out to hurry around and open his door. The fact that he was still sitting there looking a little dazed and confused rather than opening the door and getting out himself wasn’t a good sign, she decided as she ushered him out of the vehicle. Slamming the door, she hesitated briefly, but then opened the backseat and quickly unbuckled and lifted Livy out. She’d never forgive herself if someone tried to carry the girl off. Chances were the attacker would end up a bloody mess in the backseat now that she was an immortal, but Jeanne Louise didn’t want Livy to have to go through that.
Catching her up in one arm, she used her other hand to usher Paul forward and into the hospital. He was shuffling his feet, leaning heavily into her hold. He was also turning gray and Jeanne Louise was worried sick.
“Ma’am, you can’t leave your car there,” a uniformed security guard announced, moving toward them.
“The keys are in the car. Park it and bring them to me,” she ordered, knowing her car could block the way of an incoming ambulance.
The man turned and headed out of the hospital, helped on his way by a mental push from her. Jeanne Louise then glanced around at the people in hospital greens who were available and took control of the one who had “Doctor” on their name tag. She slipped into the man’s mind and sent him out of the glass enclosed reception cubicle and around to open the doors for her as she ushered Paul forward.
“He was splitting wood and cut himself with the axe,” she said abruptly as she urged him into the inner sanctum of the ER. “He’s lost a lot of blood.”
A nurse rushed up with a wheelchair and Jeanne Louise urged him into it, and then followed as they wheeled him along a row of examination rooms.
The nurse glanced from her to the doctor Jeanne Louise was still examining, and then said a bit nervously, “We don’t usually allow anyone but patients back here.”
“But you’ll make an exception in my case,” Jeanne Louise said grimly, dividing her concentration between doctor and nurse now.
“Of course,” the nurse said pleasantly, turning Paul into a room and wheeling him up to the examination table. “Do you think you can stand up, sir?”
Jeanne Louise set Livy in the chair by the door, noting the child was waking. She could only control so many minds at once. Sighing to herself, she murmured soothingly to the girl and then turned and walked over to Paul. Jeanne Louise lifted him out of the wheelchair and set him on the table as easily as if he were a child, but no one said anything. Paul was too woozy and weak to really notice and she still had control of the nurse and doctor.
Leaving the doctor and nurse to their work, Jeanne Louise moved back to stand beside Livy and took a moment to send the just waking child back to sleep. She then watched silently as the doctor unwrapped the bandage and asked Paul questions. One of them was what blood type he was.
“O,” Jeanne Louise answered for him when he frowned with confusion.
The doctor glanced at her, but didn’t ask how she knew. She supposed he assumed she was Paul’s wife and privy to such information, which was fortunate. Jeanne Louise could hardly tell him that after a hundred years of drinking blood one began to recognize and differentiate between blood types and since she’d been drinking Paul’s for several days a couple weeks back, she knew.
The nurse rushed off to get blood while the doctor finished unwrapping the towel and took a look at the wound. He was cleaning and sewing it up by the time the nurse returned and began to set up an IV with both blood and a clear fluid she supposed was sugar water or something else to help replenish his liquids.
Jeanne Louise remained silent and still through all of it. Her eyes taking everything in and her heart racing.
“You were lucky, Mr. Jones,” the doctor announced as he finished with stitching him up and turned his attention to bandaging the wound. “You only nicked the metacarpal bone of your thumb, but you managed to hack into the vein too. A couple more minutes and you would have bled to death.”
Paul grunted at this news. He was starting to come around a little, the blood and fluids already doing him some good. Jeanne Louise on the other hand felt sick. Her stomach felt like it was eating itself and she felt woozy.
She’d nearly lost him. To a stupid accident. How many more times would she have to go through this before she finally did lose him? How many more rushes to the hospital? How many fevers, colds, pneumonias . . . ?